Reality on Bravo

SPOILER ALERT:

Below the break, there’s a slight spoiler (potentially…it is just a rumor) about the upcoming season of Project Runway. If you don’t want to know, don’t click!

In case you’re not clicking, I’ll give you the story without ruining anything: Someone (an unknown source) is claiming that one of the Bravo contestants got kicked off because he/she was sick, not because of the design. The designer in question is said to have HIV and contracted a staph infection while on the show. True? Who knows. But if you want more specifics, click on the link below.

Of all networks, you wouldn’t think Bravo would get called on discrimination. And yet, they are! An anonymous “in the know” person is reported that one of the contestants on Project Runway, Jack Mackenroth, got booted off during the fifth episode. His crime wasn’t a sloppy hemline or an ugly color palette, however. It was being HIV-positive.

According to these reports, Jack, a gay man and talented designed, developed an HIV staph infection during filming. He was then asked to leave. Apparently his face blew up and the whole thing was a little nasty.

Jack doesn’t deny (or confirm for that matter) these claims. He does deny that he was the person to leak any of this information, and he did use the word “fictitious” to describe the claims (but which claims, we don’t know - the ones about him being HIV positive or the ones about him being kicked off the show or the ones about the reason he was kicked off the show…or all of the above?

In any case, my question is this: If Jack really did develop an HIV infection, did it put the other players at risk? If it did, and that’s why they kicked him off, GOOD! That’s not a matter of discrimination about someone with HIV. That’s a matter of the safety of the other designers, the models, the crew, and the judges. HIV is tricky business. In my opinion, it’s better to send someone home than risk others being infected.

And that’s true of any disease, not just HIV. Something like the common cold may be no big deal, but a life-threatening contagious disease is. By allowing HIV positive contestants, like Jack and John from Top Design, participate, Bravo is showing that they are not, in fact, discriminating. They’re simply cautious.

Project Runway